Jubilee: The Emergence of African-American Culture

The title surprised me. Never would I think of "Jubilee" when it comes to slavery. But the end of the slavery era was, indeed, a celebration. And now National Geographic has presented us with an astonishing and beautiful commemoration of the blood, sweat, tears, and toil of enslaved Africans. For a group of people who gave, literally, their labor to build the foundation of the world's greatest culture, we do indeed owe our collective thanks. National Geographic has done just that with this extraordinary book, done in collaboration with the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. The essays help enormously, as they give voice to the descendants of that painful era. If ever there was a must-read, Jubilee is it!